build a house inside of you
by callmesandy
Summary: It's almost their usual back and forth. Just a few miles off. (No fun sex pollen, s2 pre-Jacksonville.) (Content warnings for lack of consent, trauma.)


Notes: not mine, no profit garnered. Title from Wolf Parade's You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son. Thanks to pb for beta help, all mistakes and mis steps mine.

x

Olivia thinks of it as the room. Thinking "the room" encapsulates the experience. She likes to think of it as a discrete event. Which it was.

She should ask Peter how he thinks of it, how he tells himself that story. She should.

x

If she were going to put it in her report, she would write that she and Peter were walking down a hallway which became a narrow room as two metal 'walls' descended from the ceiling. They both started looking for a way out at the same time the room filled with gas. Even after a year working for Broyles and literally being pulled over to an alternate universe, Olivia was still surprised and sickened by the horrible things people conceived. Dosing people so they had no control and just wanted to fuck. Since she has no intention of describing any of the experience in her report, she thinks in her head "fuck." Sex is the wrong word. Intercourse too clinical. Fuck seems about right for the brutalness of it.

Her actual report describes them both as passing out. When they came to, Peter managed to do something with the camera in the ceiling that shorted out the entire building and got them out of the room. Peter went one way and according to him, destroyed the entire security system and any video footage. In her report she does not mention that he bludgeoned the computers into junk and then managed with his genius brain to find a way to set everything on fire. To raise the value of the 'items' being sold, there were no connections to the internet where something might have been uploaded. Olivia went the other way and found the three men that they sought, this week's mad scientist and his two assistants. They shot at her, she shot back. She killed all of three of them. It was basically a successful operation.

Walter complains that he really wanted to examine the chemical compounds that the man had constructed. "Fascinating theories and if he got them to work -"

Peter says, "Sorry, Walter, it all went up in flames."

x

Walter is bored of watching the fire consume the building and the room and wants to go back to the lab. He was working on something, he needs to test the reaction. Astrid says she'll take him. So Olivia drives Peter home. It is not a comfortable silence. Outside the hotel Peter and Walter are still living in, she slows to a stop. Peter says, "I don't mean to keep asking, but are you really okay?"

"I'm fine," she says. "Are you?" Her nails have blood under them. She clawed at him, she bit him.

"I'm fine if you're fine," he says. He gets out gingerly. He walks to the door and doesn't look back.

She goes home and gets in the shower. The water is hot enough to pink her skin but it's not as hot as she wants. Her nails are clean and her fingertips prune-y when she gets out. She trims her nails to the quick.

She has bruises all around her hips and waist. She turns off the light and goes to bed in the dark.

x

It's Sunday and she has the day off. Olivia assumes her plans are cancelled. She puts on sweats. She watches football without thinking and drinks beer. She's actually fallen asleep on the couch by 8 pm.

Peter knocks on the door around 9 pm. He's been drinking, too. He says, "World's shittiest fourth date? I think so."

"I don't think it was a date," Olivia says. He's not moving forward to get in, and she's not moving from the door frame.

"Well, we're not having another one," he says, looking at the floor.

She says, "Not tonight."

Peter doesn't look up. He says, "Okay, I just wanted to check that you actually are fine."

"Because you are," she says. It's almost their usual back and forth. Just a few miles off.

"I'll be fine," he says. He reaches out to touch her cheek and she forces herself to stand still and let him. He notices, of course.

x

Their first three dates were fantastic. She was finally free of the cane. She went with him out for food. She moved to his side of the booth. They were necking like teenagers when the waiter came with the check. Peter paid. He said, "We're celebrating, right?"

"Right," she said. They made out more in her car until she said, "I am not having sex in this car."

He settled back in his seat. "Right. Okay."

"I would be happy to have sex at my apartment," she said, starting the car.

"That's just excellent," he said.

x

In her bed, on her soft sheets, Peter went down on her until she came and the bed shook. She was on top and leaning over him, his hands tender on her breasts when he came. Their second date was two nights later. He came over to her apartment, they ordered pizza. She woke up with his arms around her.

They had a case involving an actual gigantic squid that might have been evil and was definitely toxic. It took a week for Walter to come up with a suitable poison that wouldn't end up rendering the lake in question a Superfund site. Their third date, Olivia took Peter out so they could order calamari. She pushed his laptop closed after the third time he tried to show her tentacle porn. That was Friday, they made plans for Sunday.

x

Peter tenses up when she gets too close. That's all. He rolls his eyes at something Walter says. He tells Olivia and Astrid what Walter just said but in language they understand. He listens intently when Olivia explains what she's learned about a suspect. Charlie is unavailable so she takes him with her to an interview. She makes a joke in the car, he laughs.

There's always at least a foot between them all day. She's not sure if she's doing it or he is. Or maybe they both are.

The case is a bust. Walter says it's actually just a coincidence that the robbers and the two headed dog were in the same place. "It really does happen that way sometimes," Walter says.

x

Charlie dies. Charlie was already dead. Charlie has been dead for six weeks, at least. She tastes blood in her mouth. So much evil has happened to her wearing the face of someone she loved. John lied to her, Peter in the room, Charlie trying to kill her. William Bell and Walter experimented on her. She knows it's not all the same, she knows.

At Charlie's funeral, she stands next to Broyles with the other agents. She sees Peter and Walter over on the other side. As everyone breaks up, Walter comes over to her, Peter lagging behind him. Walter says, "I am very sorry, Agent Dunham. I know how special that relationship is, friend and partner." He hugs her suddenly and she mumbles thank you.

Peter pats her shoulder.

Her birthday is in two days.

x

She should do something, talk to someone. She would talk to Charlie. She can't. She used to talk to Peter. He won't let her, she thinks. She is being unfair. Happy birthday, she thinks. Only Charlie and Peter know how she feels about this day, what she dreads. Only Peter, she corrects herself.

Olivia goes to the lab. They are all happy to see her but there is no sign of taffy or custard or flan or some sort of pie so Peter had been kind enough not to tell anyone. She goes into her office and Peter follows her in. He says, "I got you this, before."

She takes the brown paper bag from Markham's Books. Before what, she thinks. Before when they were just starting to date, before they had ever kissed. "Thank you for not wrapping it, I guess."

"That was on purpose," Peter says. "Astrid and Walter would have noticed I was giving you a gift."

It's a book on counting cards for profit. She smiles at him. "My next career."

"You could make a lot of money if you were smart about it," Peter says.

"Like you were?"

"Hey, now," he says, pretending to be affronted.

x

It's a nothing day. She catches up on reports at the Federal Building and comes home late. She opens the door, ready to see that letter slipped under her door again.

Instead Peter is sitting on her couch. "Sorry to break in, I forgot, I got you a second gift."

"Did you?" She assumes he didn't. He broke in to make sure if the card came, she didn't get it. She is so overwhelmed she stops where she's standing, two steps in. She calms herself. She sits down next to him. "What's my second gift?"

Peter produces an expensive bottle of whisky, with a bright pink bow on it. She smiles again. She says, "Want a glass?"

"Sure," he says.

She drinks her first glass in two gulps. Then she tries to think when was the last time she ate as she pours her second. Peter says, "Something as nice as this, you might think about actually savoring."

"I have a whole bottle to savor," she says.

They talk about nothing. When Peter was twelve, Walter bought him four pornographic magazines for his birthday. "There was some implication in the card that he assumed I would enjoy them during my private time in the bathroom since I had been taking so long lately."

"That's, wow," Olivia says. "Walter was quite the parent."

"Also, it was three weeks after my actual birthday," Peter says, grinning.

Olivia talks about buying gifts for Ella when she was two. She doesn't ask if the card came.

Between the two of them, 2/3rds of her pink bowed whisky is gone. She leans over and kisses Peter's cheek. He turns to look at her and she kisses his mouth. The kissing is lovely and she doesn't feel like anything is wrong or bad.

Peter pulls back and says, "One more present."

She leans back on the couch, wondering. He gets on his knees, gently pulls off her pants and underwear. He holds her legs behind her knees and scoots her forward while opening her up. She reaches to touch his head and he bats her away. He says, "Sorry." She feels less good. She remembers blood under her nails and almost closes her legs. She takes a breath and closes her eyes.

Then she feels wonderful. She feels worshipped. Peter is more aware than she is or remembers better what he did to her, he grips her thighs but never enough for her to worry. She unbuttons her shirt and touches her breasts. Peter adds a finger, then two, to what he's doing with his tongue. She bucks up and pushes herself further on his fingers as she comes. She says his name over and over again.

She says, "Come up here." He shakes his head but she pulls on his wet hand until he's sitting next to her. He's obviously hard. She kisses him and tastes herself while she opens his pants. She presses against him, his dick in her hands against her stomach. He comes quickly.

"We're gross," she says. She takes off her shirt and undoes her bra. She takes her pile of clothes into the bedroom, dumping them in the hamper on her way into the shower. She smiles and reaches for the floral smelling soap Rachel got her.

She walks out into the living room with her towel around her, saying, "Your turn." Peter is gone.

She shivers and glares at herself in the mirror.

She calls Peter after twenty minutes. He starts by saying, "I'm sorry, I just -"

"Had to leave?" She is aware her voice is clipped and angry.

"I tell myself, I can pretend I'm a good person -"

"I think you could have at least waited until I got out of the shower to have your panic attack," she says.

"Sure," he says, angry now. "Next time I will." He hangs up on her.

x

She goes to see Sam Weiss. He tells her life is a fucking nightmare. She can't really deny it.

In Seattle, she has a suite. Peter comes in with the dead man's dream journal. They end up sitting on the edge of her bed, her feet kick like she's Ella. She says, "Maybe if we actually talked."

He slumps a little more. He says, "What specifically do you want to actually talk about?"

She glares at him.

He says, "You think I'm a good guy."

"You are, mostly. Now," she says.

"I wasn't a very good guy to you," he says.

"That wasn't you. It wasn't me, and it wasn't you. It was something that used us," Olivia says. "It doesn't mean anything about who you or me are."

He says, "It doesn't feel like that. And, you." His hand covers hers. He says, "If something is this hard to make it work badly, is it worth it?"

She pictures herself slapping him. She says, "I'm not worth it."

"That is not at all what I said," he says.

It sounds like that, she thinks. "I'm going to sleep." She scrambles back on the bed, pulls a blanket up to her neck. Peter gets in next to her. She says, "What are you doing" and doesn't sound like she means it.

"I think you're amazing," he says. "I'm the one who's not worth it in this argument."

"It's not a good argument," she says. She moves closer to him and lets him put one arm around her.

x

There's another weird death. She lies on her back on the bed trying to think and process and Peter is already asleep next to her, his arm on her stomach. When he wakes up she tells him about Charlie. She doesn't say how sometimes they all feel like the same thing; John, Peter, Charlie.

On the flight home Peter feels too big sitting next to her. She wants him away from her so much.

x

"Maybe you're right," Olivia says to Peter. He looks up from his table in the lab. They are oddly alone, and they are never alone in the lab, somehow. Olivia wonders what Astrid knows, or senses. She says, "Maybe you're right. This is all so hard, why are we even trying?"

They haven't shared a bed in the week since Seattle. He's kissed her three times but she leaves at night and goes home alone. He doesn't call. Peter says, "Maybe I was wrong."

She pushes her hair back. He says, "We were going great before the gas, we have a lot to build on. It doesn't have to be an end."

"Says the man who ran out on our first attempt to not be over," she says.

"I assume for you this is one more case of someone you thought you could trust turning out not to be trustworthy at all," Peter says. She hates him for being right. He says, "That's not what it was, how I think about it. So yes, I'm sorry, I left, but it wasn't why you think."

"I don't think anything, we haven't really talked about it all. You said something about pretending to be a good person," she says. She hears apathy in her voice. It's funny. She feels like everything is too much.

"I have a temper," he says, looking at his table. "A bad one. I have a father who's done unspeakable, horrible things, some of them to you. I don't settle down, I don't have roots. I've hurt people, a lot of them. And I feel like that gas, it was just the worst of me. And I am pretty sure you deserve better than that."

It's a lot of talking for Peter.

She hears her heart beat in her ears. She says, "That's not right. It wasn't the worst of you. I know it wasn't. It wasn't the worst of me, so it wasn't like that for you."

He meets her eyes. His smile is almost genuine. He says, "I don't think you're right, either. Maybe we agree to disagree and go out to dinner anyway."

"If we end up in bed, you are staying the night."

His smile is real for once. Peter says, "Promise. Honestly, Walter will be thrilled."

x

Peter is on top of her, heavy, over her. She pushes him off roughly. She covers her face while she slows her breathing.

He lays next to her, their shoulders touch. He says, "I am not, you know, let's talk about anything else."

She nods. He says, "Did you know my 30th birthday, last year, was ten days or so after I met you? I assumed Walter would either make a big fuss or completely forget. It was the latter, by the way. But still, I woke up and I was like, this is 30. In virtual FBI custody living in a motel babysitting my fucking crazy father. This is your life, Peter."

She looks at him. He is looking straight ahead, up at the ceiling. He is gesturing with his left hand. "I knew it was your birthday," she says. "But I didn't see you all day. We didn't have a case."

"Astrid was the only one who remembered or acknowledged it," Peter says. "I was on edge for most of the day between hoping Walter would actually remember, and absolutely dreading what he would do if he did. He finally passed out in the afternoon and was out of it when Astrid came."

"She came to the hotel," Olivia says.

"She made me cupcakes," Peter says. He glances at her, smiling. "3 cupcakes, one for each decade. It was very sweet. And they were delicious, by the way. Three days later, Walter saw a waitress with a nice rack and started telling me an excruciating story about my mother when she was pregnant and then he stops, right in the middle, and says, 'Your birthday is in a few days.'"

She waits for the rest. He says, "I said, no, Walter, it's not. It was three days ago. Guess how old I am? First four guesses were wrong. He actually said 40 the first time, which is one of the most insulting things he's ever said to me."

"I would not have guessed 40," she says. "I didn't get you anything this year, either."

He turns off the light. She hears and feels him turn on his side, towards her. He says, "You didn't die."

x

She drives to his place at 2 am. She thinks about throwing rocks at the window like a teenager. He opens the door while she is still wondering if it's too late to call him. "Hey," he says. He's wearing a t-shirt from Quantico. There's a bandage underneath that she can see by his neck. And his pajama pants. "Did you come for the crepes?"

"What?"

"Walter made crepes earlier. Because I'd been abducted," he says.

She gestures at his shirt. "Where did that come from?"

"Astrid," he says. He smirks at her. "Birthday present, I think it was a joke."

He steps aside from the door. "Did you want to come in or not?"

"Are there crepes left?"

There aren't, but they go upstairs to his room anyway. "How are you, really?" She sits next to him on his bed, rubbing the baby soft cotton of his pants.

"Surprisingly good," he says. "I know, weird, right? But there I was, under this brute force mind control, resisting as hard as I could. I think I looked like I was really constipated most of the time, but it was a struggle, I swear. And I realized I tried, too, with the gas. So I feel less like an inherently bad person, which is a relief."

"I was worried," she says. She gets up and takes off her coat, leaving it on the floor. She steps forward and ends up sitting on his lap, her hands resting on his chest. "We were all worried."

"I bet Broyles regrets that now," he says.

"He doesn't," she says.

They kiss. She reaches for his neck and as soon she touches the back of his head, he flinches and pulls back. She starts to move away, but he holds her waist. She shivers in dread, in guilt.

He laughs softly. "Let's do this again."

She thinks about the way he said "worth it" weeks ago. She doesn't really believe that love is only good when it's epic and dramatic and full of obstacles. She told that to Rachel five hundred times when she was a teenager.

Peter says, "Olivia?"

She leans back in to him and says, "Okay, do over."

He stays flat on his back since he is injured. She takes off her clothes slowly, not letting him help. He holds the back of her thighs and guides her forward. Sit on it, she thinks, and almost laughs until his tongue brushes her clit. Her thighs quiver from the exertion of holding herself in just the right place until she bends over, her hands braced against the headboard. She doesn't remember dread or shivering. She just feels amazing. She comes and collapses. Peter says a muffled ouch and she gets off him, awkward and bumbling. "Good do over," he says.

"Like we're done," she says. She doesn't bother to get his pants and boxers all the way off, just low enough on his thighs that she has the access she needs. She doesn't want her mouth on cotton, just him.

She swallows. She rolls over onto his stomach. He says ouch again. She sits up. "In retrospect," he says, "if we'd planned that better we could have done both at once."

"I think this better. I like when you're not distracted," she says, raising an eyebrow. She is exhausted all at once. She gets under the covers. She says, "I'm using your toothbrush in the morning."

"You and Walter," he says, grimacing.

"You don't share a bathroom anymore, he doesn't use your toothbrush," she says.

"I sure hope so," he says.

The thought grosses her out for some reason. She gets dressed in his pajama pants and Quantico t-shirt, pulling on her coat. "Hey," he says. "Take that off when you get back."

"I actually went there, unlike you," she says.

"That was the joke."

She grabs her go bag from the SUV and pulls her toothbrush out as she starts up the stairs. Just in time for Walter to come out of his bedroom area and say, "Oh, Agent Dunham. So nice to see you. And you have your toothbrush."

She waves it at him and smiles like an idiot. "Hey, Walter," she says, practically running up the stairs and away from him.

x

Newton says to her, his voice full of contempt, "How long will he still love you when you let his father die?"

It's not persuasive but it's one more thing she takes in her heart when Newton calls her weak 2 minutes later.

Broyles tells her she isn't weak. She says, "He knew Peter and I are sleeping together." She realizes she's just assumed Broyles knew, too. He does now for certain.

Broyles says, "It's more information. Newton or his people have been watching us close enough to see that."

x

She decides it's time to talk. She is brushing her teeth and Peter is lying on the bed, still blissed out. She leans against the door to the bathroom and watches Peter roll over and get up. He walks past her. She says, "We do a lot of things."

"Amen," he says. He walks past her again and gets back on the bed. "You know, if you don't want to do that again, it's fine. Because you are brushing really thoroughly."

"I do the same when it's your dick," she says, smiling. "I don't mind." She finishes with mouthwash and then gets into bed beside him. "And you really love it, apparently."

"You know, Walter once gave a 30 minute lecture on the miracle of the prostate -"

"Please tell me it was only to you and you were older than 12," Olivia says.

"It was last year so I was older than 12 but it was in a lecture room. I think the grad students were there for American colonial history. I only caught the last ten minutes." He rests his hand on her bare thigh. "So, we do a lot of things. And there's that one we haven't, not since the gas."

"You always say the gas, I say the room," she says.

"There's probably some deep psychological insight to be gleaned from that, but honestly, I just want to sleep right now," he says.

"I feel like this is something we should talk about," she says.

Peter says nothing. There's tension in his hand on her thigh. He says, "I don't want to. Not talk, though I'm not super excited about that one, either. But, the traditional penis in vagina, I don't want to do that. When I have nightmares about it, I am doing that to you. So I don't want to. Do you?"

She says, "Not really. Not right now. But that's weird, right? It's a sign of something. We're wrong."

"Olivia," he says. "I don't think we're wrong. Did you want to talk more? Cause then I have to get up and make coffee, which I will do."

"No," she says. She dreams about Newton when she falls asleep, and is relieved about the ordinariness of her nightmare.

x

She tries, after Edina. Like the first time, she tries being on top. Peter pulls at her legs until she moves off him. "Nope," he says. "No sorry you killed someone sex."

"That's actually not what I was trying," she says.

"Sorry," he says. He kisses her until she relaxes. "I just don't want to, not today."

She feels something like relief.

x

When the CDC and Walter and Astrid come up to their floor, Olivia is on the other side of the room from Peter. She hears him when he calls out to her.

He is holding out his fingers, with blood on them. "I'm definitely infected," he says. "I feel like, I want to hide it, so I'm telling you."

"Help," she says. Like a dream where she can only whisper. But she has a job so she says it again, louder. "Help, Peter's infected."

By the time the CDC staff come over, Peter's eyes are darker, his skin paler. He resists as they knock him out.

In the end, Walter finds a cure and Olivia turns on the air so they have the time to make the cure. 7 hours later, she is sitting by Peter, still unconscious. Astrid says, "Walter will be back when the second test shows Peter is cured. But he's totally okay."

"I know," Olivia says. She wants, more than anything, to smooth his hair. He'd react badly if she did that when he was awake. It feels like cheating to do it when he can't stop her.

x

Peter casually puts his arm around her waist and she doesn't flinch or tense up. She even leans into it. It's January and he returned his grandfather's books to Walter three days ago. "My grandfather the Nazi," Peter says, out of nowhere.

"Walter said he spied for the Allies," Olivia says. He pulls her closer and she likes it.

"I'm sure, I'm sure not once in the decade before did he ever support the Nazis. I think Walter likes to think his father was always a good man," Peter says.

"Unlike you," Olivia says.

"I don't remember ever actually thinking Walter was a good man. I probably did when I was two or three. Or eight. He's a better man, now," Peter says.

x

They're barely paying attention to the movie. Olivia thinks it's maybe about aliens. She is mostly thinking about Peter's hand in her underwear and kissing him.

She stops. She says, "I didn't hate it while I was happening, but I hated it after and now. I just had no control, none. I don't think it's some hidden buried part of my personality coming out, because it wasn't me. And I hate that."

"Lack of control?" Peter rests his forehead on hers. "You are not a fan of losing control at all."

"You better not be making a joke right now," Olivia says, smiling.

"I am not at all," he says.

She wakes up at 1 am and presses closer to Peter. He mumbles. She says, "I'm awake."

"Yay," he says. She presses against him. She's only wearing his Quantico t-shirt.

His eyes aren't open but he has his hand between her legs. "You know what I like," she says. She raises her leg and shifts again. She reaches for his dick and starts to guide him inside her.

Peter opens his eyes. He pushes in deeper. She says, "I like this, too."

Their pace is slow. She'd call it teasing but she knows it's cautious. Then it's not. Then it's bliss. It's good, very good. They are good together.

Peter kisses her. "Now I'm even more sleepy."

"You're so romantic," she says.

She wakes up again at 3 am and can not be in the same bed with him. Her whole body tenses for a fight so she gets out of bed. She puts on a clean pair of underwear. She sits in the living room with a glass of wine until she's calm. She pours her second glass when Peter comes out of the bedroom. She hates how well he knows her, that he doesn't even try to sit near her.

"I know how you feel right now," he says, from the other end of the couch.

She just looks at him. Then she passes him the bottle of wine. "So," he says, "I'll just sit here. And when you want to come over here, you do that."

She falls asleep again. When she wakes up, her head is in Peter's lap. He has very solid thighs. "We're good," she says. "Worth it, even."

Peter wakes with a start and swears. "My neck will never recover." He pats her shoulder. "But I'm okay, really."

"Good," she says. "Why do you think you think of it as the gas and I think of it as the room?"

Peter sighs. He says, "I think of the cause, how it caused us to behave, you think of the location, as this place where the bad thing happened. A room you can burn down or wall off. Or I'm completely wrong."

"It's actually not that interesting," she says.

"It's very interesting if it bothers you," he says. "Depending on what it is you're referring to, it bothers me, too. Less now."

"Yeah," she says. "Less now."


End file.
